A high school teacher
in rural Oklahoma resigned last week after a controversy
erupted in response to an assignment intended to teach
tolerance.
In January, Debra
Taylor showed her students at Grandfield High School the 2002
film
The Laramie Project,
based on the play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. The
students were to then select scenes and
film their own versions for a class project, but the
school's principal stopped production after a few
weeks.
When Taylor led
students in a reflective ceremony about the canceled project,
district superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the entire
class. Taylor complained to a school board member, which
prompted Turlington to recommend she be fired. The school board
approved her resignation on Friday.
An attorney for the
school district denied that Taylor was let go because of the
assignment's gay-friendly content, but others in the
community contend that the nature of the material played a
role.
"They don't
want something like this addressed in our community," Matt
Ebner, one of Taylor's former students, told
USA Today.